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Kate Rasmussen, graduated from our Creative Writing program this past Saturday. The week prior to her graduation she read to other writers from UM at The Oval staff showcase reading. "Adviser Robert Stubblefield, an author and lecturer at UM, said the reading was an opportunity for Rasmussen...

Greer's novel, "Less," is "a generous book, musical in its prose and expansive in its structure and range, about growing older and the essential nature of love," according to Monday's announcement on the Pulitzer website.The novel concerns a novelist named Arthur Less who accepts invitations to...

Programs

English is one of the largest and most dynamic departments at the University of Montana. Undergraduates choose from emphases that include literature, film studies, creative writing, English education, and linguistics, while also having an opportunity to minor in Irish Studies or literature. The English Department also houses the Montana Writing Project, which collaborates with educators and students at all levels across the state, as well as the Composition program, serving close to twenty percent of the student body each year. Graduate degrees are offered in Creative Writing (our nationally ranked MFA program), Literature (MA), and English Education (MAT).

A common dedication to excellence in reading, writing, and critical thinking holds the many threads of our department together. Our students, regardless of the options they choose, receive a strong foundation in studying both in canonical and noncanonical literatures–taking classes that expose them to texts as varied as Paradise Lost, Bleak House, Love Medicine, Brokeback Mountain, and Midnight´s Children. Through close reading, students learn to analyze a plethora of diverse forms of representation, developing skills that facilitate criticism, creative writing, and pedagogy. These skills also prepare students for the larger challenges that face them in a world where reading, writing, and thinking are integral to almost every profession.